Memory
by Em Mindelan
Summary: A man with green eyes haunts Sydney's dreams, but she wakes beside Danny, a man with blonde hair and blue eyes. S/V angst, plus a lot of SpyFamily issues.
1. Prologue

Well, this little demon just popped into my head, and wouldn't let me sleep until I'd written it.  
  
It's the prologue to a new story I'm writing, called "Memory".  
  
It's completely different from "Penance" [Catharsis, Evolution, Renewal, Renaissance] - i.e. will have plot, and will have dialogue. Eventually. :D

And if you thought I was evil during _Penance_...well, you ain't seen *nothing* yet, baby.

TITLE - Memory  
SUMMARY - Sydney Bristow disappeared three years ago.   
RATING - PG for now, probably PG-13 in the end, but no higher.  
TIMEPERIOD - Anytime after "Phase One"  
SHIP - S/V. S/V. S/V. *repeats as a mantra over and over and over* Whenever you doubt, read these words and know I am true of heart!   
DISCLAIMER - I don't own them, I don't own them...please don't hurt me...   
DEDICATION - To my dad, whose birthday dinner I used to plot this out more. Happy birthday Dad! ****

**Memory**

_Prologue_

_THEN_

Sydney Bristow disappeared three years ago on a routine mission to Paris to pick up classified intelligence from a CIA operative working inside the French Government.

Oh, sure, the files were collected from the operative. 

[_Jack Bristow held a gun to the head of the operative and shoved him up against a wall while Michael Vaughn shouted in French over and over again, just "WHERE IS SHE?" The operative didn't know, and said as much. He said that for hours, and eventually they believed him_.]

Everything went smoothly.

Except for one small thing.

Sydney Bristow never made it back to the airport.

* * *

_NOW_

She takes her children off to play in the park near the apartment [flat, she reminds herself. The British call it a "flat"] this morning, hoping that getting out into the fresh air might ease her churning stomach.

Her stomach churns because she looks at the face of her husband, and sees that of two other men.

Her husband has blond hair and blue eyes. He's a doctor at one of London's biggest hospitals, a cardiac pediatrician as a matter of fact. They've been married nearly three years, and were engaged a year before that.

When he proposed to her, she was a grad student at UCLA, studying for her master's in literature. 

_She was standing on green grass in the middle of the campus, while he knelt in front of her and began to sing, his blue eyes bright in the sunshine, his brown hair_-**wait**.

Her husband has blond hair. 

Why then, in her memories of his proposal, does he have brown hair?

And why does a green-eyed man who she feels strangely comfortable with haunt her dreams?

Please read and review! 

:)  
Em


	2. Chapter One

**Memory**  
_Chapter One_  
_THEN_  
She didn't go easily.  
  
They stopped her taxi back to the airport [_the driver was one of theirs_] and pulled her out [_it was dark, she couldn't see_].  
  
Four of them set out on the mission to capture her.  
  
One returned.  
  
She took down three of them [_shot one, knocked out the other, broke the leg of the last_] before the fourth took her by surprise [_one of them had shot her in the leg_] from behind.  
  
She tried to fight, but she was tired and she'd lost so much blood.  
  
The one who returned from the mission was a man named Alistair Sark.  
  
He knocked her out [_slammed the butt of his rifle into the base of her skull_] and dragged her back into the taxi.  
When she woke up, she was sitting in a chair, with three people standing in front of her.  
  
_Her mother.__  
  
Her boss.  
  
Her "colleague"._  
  
All of her favourite people in all the world gathered in one spot. _This day has really taken a sudden turn into the "worst days of life" category...._  
  
"Hello, Sydney. I do apologise for the restraints, but until we know that you're going to cooperate, I'm afraid they're rather necessary."  
  
"Hello, Sloane. Sark, I see you're still working for this worm?"  
  
"He's offering me some rather nice incentives for my continued employment," Sark replied offhandedly.  
  
"Little weasel," she muttered under her breath. Or perhaps not quite so under her breath as she would have liked.  
  
"Sydney, that's no way to talk to our friends," her mother admonished.  
  
"Mom, it's so nice to see you as well. I see you've joined their merry little gang?" she replies sardonically.  
  
"So what exactly can I do for all you lovely people? Can I just add how nice it is to see all of you in one place? I feel like they must have been having a sale on villains somewhere, and I've gotten three of the price of one..."  
  
"Sark." Sloane gestures Sark forward, and she can see the syringe in his hand, and she knows what's coming, but that doesn't make not flinching as the needle slid into the vein in her arm any easier.  
  
"Goodnight, Sydney..." Sark whispered in her ear as everything went black.  
  
* * *  
  
"She's responding well to the treatment, Mr. Sloane. Everything seems to be going according to schedule."  
  
"I thought you were having some trouble erasing her memories of her CIA handler?"  
  
_She had screamed his name over and over again, the desperate pleas of a woman whose life was rapidly being erased._  
  
"Well, we were, but we think we've overcome those difficulties. Michael Vaughn no longer means anything to Miss Bristow."  
  
"Excellent. Has she begun to recognise Sark as Mr. Hecht?"  
  
"We're about to begin that stage of the treatment this afternoon."  
  
"I'm very pleased with your work, Doctor. My colleagues were right when they recommended you for this operation - and   
that productivity bonus in the contract is yours."  
  
"Thankyou, Mr. Sloane!"  
  
The scientist scurries off, his brain filled with pleasant thoughts of large bonuses. The Hippocratic Oath [_do no harm_] long ago gave way in his mind to sheer greed, and all bows before his greed now, even the morals and ethics he was taught.  
  
He's a bug. A useful one, for now, Sloane thinks, but ultimately a bug.  
  
And all bugs get stepped upon on the end.  
  
* * *  
  
"Sydney," Sark croons softly, "Wake up, sweetheart. It's Danny - we've all been so worried about you..."  
  
"Danny?" she croaks hoarsely, "But Danny's dead...."  
  
"No, I'm not...that must just be the concussion speaking. I'm right here, darling."  
  
"What-What happened?"  
  
"You fell down the stairs, dear. You broke your leg [_actually, you have bullet wounds in it, he thinks_] and knocked your head about a bit [_on a rifle butt_]....you've been in a coma for nearly a week - you scared me to death!"  
  
"Where-Where am I?" She looks around in confusion..."Danny, I don't remember any of this! I-I don't remember anything."  
  
"Then I'll just have to help you remember it all, won't it?" He smiles comfortingly and sits down beside her bed. "Why don't you just start by telling me everything that you do remember?"  
  
"My name is Sydney Bristow-"  
  
"Sydney Hecht, now. Remember? We got married nearly a year ago, and we have a little baby daughter, Laura."  
  
He pulls out his wallet [_black leather, of course_] and shows her a picture of a small baby wrapped in a fuzzy pink blanket, in the arms of a smiling man she doesn't quite recognise.  
  
"Who's that holding her, Danny?"  
  
"You don't remember Arvin?"  
  
"No...no, I don't think so."  
  
"Your parents died when you were very young, sweetheart, in a car crash. Arvin was your father's best friend, and he and his wife Emily raised you from the time you were about six years old, like you were their own daughter. Arvin is Laura's godfather, and Emily is her godmother."  
  
"Oh....how old is Laura?"  
  
"Nearly three months old now - she was a honeymoon baby, we think." He grins slightly at this.  
  
"What-what do we do? I mean, our jobs?"  
  
"I'm a cardiac pediatrician, and you're the head of Credit Dauphine's branch in London - you're a banker."  
  
"Oh....is that where we are now? London?"  
  
"Yes - we moved here just after we married - my father was quite sick at the time, and I wanted to be closer to him, and Arvin was kind enough to transfer you over here."  
  
"I work for Arvin? At Credit Dauphine?"  
  
"Yes, except you call him Mr. Sloane when you're at work."   
  
"Well...that seems to make sense. But there's so much I don't remember! I don't remember our wedding, or my childhood, or giving birth to Laura...all I can remember is you, Danny." She starts getting agitated at this, her eyes filling up with tears in frustration.  
  
He wraps an arm around her [_playing his part, like a good lapdog_] and comforts her. "There, there, sweetheart....the doctors say you should remember everything eventually - it's short term amnesia, and it's expected to fade as you come back into more familiar surroundings."  
  
He holds her tightly, not letting his conflicting emotions play across his face [_that's right, sweetheart, I'm your one link back to a life you don't remember_], every inch the adoring, overprotective husband.  
  
_She tormented me for so long...teased me endlessly....haunted my dreams for so long....now she's mine. And she'll never know any better. We'll finally have our revenge for the treachery of the Bristows. They betrayed us [us - Sloane and I? Irina and I? All three of us?] and they will pay.__  
  
Sydney Bristow is broken, shattered in pieces. And I get to rebuild her, one loving memory at a time._

Again, please read and review! Thanks!

:)

Em


	3. Chapter Two

Here's chapter two! Translations of the French can be found at the end of the chapter.   
  
_CHAPTER TWO__  
THEN_  
  
The last words Michael Vaughn had heard from the woman he loved [_he never gotten the chance to tell her that_] were "I'll see you soon, Vaughn. We still on for the hockey game tomorrow night?"  
  
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," he had replied. [_she__ loves the Zamboni_]  
  
"Great. I'll see you back in LA. Dorothy out." [_she__ loves that movie so much, he thinks to himself amused_]   
  
She was supposed to have caught a plane an hour later.  
  
She never boarded that plane.  
  
When Vaughn tried to ring her cell a few hours later [_maybe she missed the plane and hasn't been able to call?_] her phone [_smashed but still functional on the side of a road somewhere in __Paris_] just kept ringing, and ringing and ringing and ringing. His stomach turned to ice as he asked if anyone had heard from Agent Bristow in the last few hours [_maybe she called and I was in the restroom?_], only to have the rest of the agents on duty just shake their heads.  
A few minutes later, he was standing outside Jack Bristow's office while Jack's secretary checked on the activities of her boss.  
  
"Ah, yes, Agent Vaughn, go on in. He's just doing some paperwork," the pretty young thing [_if you were any other senior CIA officer's secretary, then I'd suspect ulterior motives for your hire. But Jack Bristow be swayed by a pretty face? Highly unlikely.]_ replied coolly. [_ah__, that explains a lot. The man of ice requires a doorkeeper to guard the entrances to his lair_]  
  
"Thank you," he replied, nearly to the door already.  
  
"Ah, yes, Lucy, what is it this time?" Jack didn't turn around from his computer screen as Vaughn entered the room.  
"Agent Bristow, we have a problem."  
  
"Mr. Vaughn, I really do not have time for your 'problem' right now." [_cold__ hearted bastard...his daughter hasn't been heard from in twelve hours, and he's concerned with his_ paperwork?]  
  
"Sydney never boarded her plane out of Paris," he announces.  
  
This gets a reaction. Jack swings around rapidly. "What do you mean she never boarded her plane?"  
  
"I mean she didn't board the plane, and she hasn't been heard from in twelve hours."  
  
"Get a team together. We're going to France."  
  
He stands rapidly, puts on his coat, and is out the door before Vaughn can say a word.   
  
Vaughn does as he's told, and gathers a team. [_Craig....__Dixon__....Eric...get your gear together. We're going to __France__._]  
  
They fly out an hour later, but Sydney Bristow is already dying halfway across the world.  
  
* * *  
  
They spent a week in France, questioning every person Sydney came in contact with on her mission, with no success.  
None of them have ever seen Jack Bristow or Michael Vaughn like this.  
  
They're desperate, ruthless [_no use for protocol now_], stopping at nothing to try and obtain information about the last hour of Sydney's mission.  
  
Eric Weiss finally realised both of them were at breaking point when the guards led a man [_the local Alliance station chief_] into an interrogation room one day [_Wednesday. We had been in __France__ since Saturday. __Sydney__ disappeared on Friday_]. Vaughn and Jack entered the room after the man.   
  
Three days later, the guards led out a battered, weeping shell of a human being.  
  
Weiss watched the first day of the interrogation tapes. After that he couldn't face it anymore.  
  
_John-Pierre Rousseau stood in chains. Michael Vaughn held a gun to his head, green eyes turned to glittering emeralds. __  
  
This time it was Jack Bristow's turn to demand the location of Sydney Bristow.   
  
"Ou est ma fille? **Ou**** est ma fille?**"  
  
Once they realized that they were getting nowhere with this technique, they sat him down, and they began to tell him, in graphic detail, how they would force him to talk._  
  
At this point, Weiss threw up in a trashbasket, sickened at their description of the torture they would inflict. [_where__ did Mike go? Where did the Michael Vaughn I became friends with go? Because this man is not Mike. This man is ruthless…_]  
  
_Then they did what they had told him they would do. They were ruthless, cold, in their inflictment of pain upon Rousseau.__  
  
Eventually he talked.   
  
"Rue 8 des anges, Place des Vosges."   
  
"C'est tout que je peux vous dire."_  
  
So they went to the Place des Vosges, a fashionable section of Paris filled with cafes and art galleries and ornate, expensive houses. [_cold__ though, no life within_]  
  
Number 8 in the Street of Angels [_she called me her guardian angel once, Vaughn reflected bitterly…I said I'd always be there for her. But when she needed me, I wasn't there_] was a tall, grand old house [_imposing and arrogant_].  
  
_They burst into the manor house, the CIA agents and some local counter-terrorism police that they had co-opted into the operation.__  
  
"Halte! Police!" they all shouted as they burst into the house.   
  
They dropped flash grenades to stun any inside, and charged in, guns at the ready, dressed in black SWAT gear, Kevlar vests compulsory.  
  
They found a housekeeper, a gardener, and a maid, trembling in the corner of a bedroom.  
  
There was a torture chamber in the basement, a soundproofed room so no one could hear the screaming that went on within.   
  
On the walls of this room were words written haphazardly in blood.  
  
"Sydney Bristow is dead."_  
  
They had thought the house was cold and arrogant from the outside.  
  
But what they had found inside broke their hearts [_and souls_].  
  
* * *  
  
They questioned the servants found within the house for hours.  
  
They knew nothing, except that Mr. Sloane and his guests [_a charming young British man, a lovely older lady, and a younger woman who had spent most of her time in her room_] had left the day before for someplace cooler [_it was July, and the weather in Paris was sweltering_].   
  
The housekeeper had heard Mr. Sloane tell Mrs. Bristow [_although she always told them to call her Laura_] that Sydney had always liked Scotland, particularly the coastline where you could see across to Ireland.  
  
So they went to Scotland, because it was a pitiful clue but it was all that they had, and at that point they were so desperate that they were ready to believe the most pathetic whisper in the dark.  
  
So they went, driven by love and fear and anger and hate and want and need and the desperate need to know what had happened. They didn't want to believe she was dead. _It wouldn't have made sense for them to have killed her_, they thought to themselves. But was this reason speaking, or just the desperate thoughts of two men trying beyond belief to cling to the hope that she was still alive?  
  
* * *   
  
Michael Vaughn throws up on the way to Scotland.  
  
He hasn't been able to keep any food down since she had disappeared [_she took his heart, his conscience with her_].  
  
First it was because his stomach turned to ice [_cold/clenching pain/feels like stone/can barely breathe_] the moment he realised she had just…disappeared. He doesn't know what's happened to her, doesn't know if she's cold or tired or lonely or hungry or if they're torturing her, or if she's already dead or if the CIA will soon have another star on that wall [_two that I love/two stars…Daddy would like her, I know. Maybe they could keep one another company while they wait for me…_]. He just doesn't know, and in a way that's what gets to him the most. He thinks that maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she was just dead, because then it would be simple to end it all [_because there would be nothing worth living for without her...I have a gun, and bullets, and I don't mind suicide missions._] He doesn't want to live without her, and he doesn't want to live if she's not living alongside him. But it's the not knowing that gets to him most. He doesn't know how his father died, but he at least knows the name and face of his killer. This time there's not really even that much, is there? All three of them were/are there, all three could have been/could be responsible for her death [_Sloane/Sark/Irina…three faces of the devil_].  
  
He believes she's still alive [_because the world's not that cruel, is it? She was free, and she was happy, happier than she'd ever been…_].  
  
But he just wants to know her fate. Because it's the not knowing which is killing him.   
  
His stomach heaves and retches constantly, and he has long since stopped eating anything except the plainest, simplest food [_even that doesn't stay down long, but it keeps Weiss from force feeding me_].  
  
He looks at his hands, and he can see them around Rousseau's throat, can see them holding a cell phone, threatening to have Rousseau unless he talked. [_"Tuez-le… ou avez-vous autre chose à nous dire, M. Rousseau?"_]  
  
And he throws up again, wondering how on earth Jack Bristow didn't kill himself years ago.  
  
_How does he do it? How does he stay so ruthless? We tortured a man until he screamed out to his mother like a child, battered him black and blue…we did things that they would do to extract information from a prisoner._  
  
He looks at his hands, and he sees those of the enemy.  
  
_I am becoming what I despise, he thinks bitterly to himself. _  
  
But he knows he can't stop.  
  
He will find her, even if it costs him everything he has.  
  
He doesn't care if it costs him his job, his family, his friends, or even the ability to look himself in the mirror every morning without being disgusted by what he sees looking back….he simply has to find her.  
  
Because nothing else matters to him anymore.   
  
[_when__ I am with her, my life is vivid, a Technicolour glory. Now everything's black and white, and I want the colour back. I want to live again. I want to see her again, see her face, touch her hair, kiss better her scars, hold her in my arms again. I want to tell her I love her, and never let her go again. I want her back, and I want to be able to live again._]  
  
_Nothing else matters._  
  
  


There's some angsty!Vaughn for you. Hehehehe...*giggles evilly*   
  
  
Oh, and some translations?   
  
"Ou est ma fille?" - "Where is my daughter?"  
"Rue 8 des anges, Place des Vosges" – "No. 8, the street of Angels, Place des Vosges [an area of Paris]"  
"C'est tout que je peux vous dire." – "I know nothing else."  
"Tuez-le… ou avez-vous autre chose à nous dire, M. Rousseau?" - "Kill him....or do you have something else to tell us, Mr. Rousseau?"  
  
Please read and review! :)  
:)  
Em  
  



	4. Chapter Three

_CHAPTER THREE_

_THEN_

Irina Devreko watches her daughter cradle a baby.

It's not her daughter's child. But her daughter _believes _it's her child.

They found the child just after she was born, in an alleyway somewhere, child of a prostitute they suspect…if they hadn't found her, she would have died within hours.

Irina Devreko is still a mother, and no mother enjoys seeing a child [_any child] suffer._

And that's why it's so hard for her to do what they're doing right now.

But she knows that there is no alternative, that there is too much at stake for her to cry over what she's doing to her daughter.

There is simply too much at stake.

Because two years ago, Irina Derevko discovered a missing fragment of the Rambaldi prophecy[_"Unless prevented at vulgar cost this woman will render the greatest power unto utter desolation..."] that concerned that same woman._

"_She who will unleash this tremendous power will be the daughter of my heir and of a woman herself once believed the prophesised one…the mother will see the beauty of __Mt.__ _Sebacio___, the daughter will never gaze upon the beauty of these mountains I myself look upon now. And many will weep for her never having seen the splendour of the sunrise upon that yonder mountain, for she will bring undone what is great, and give life to those who are dead. She will be beautiful, and terrible, and the provider of the greatest power the world has ever seen. None will be safe from her, except those who believe they control her. And although her power will seem as a gift, nothing is as it appears. Let this be known – there is a reason why death comes to all men."_

Next to this prophecy, there was a sketch of a man who bore an incredible resemblance to Alistair Sark. 

  
Beneath it were the words "_My Heir – Father of the One_".

No one knows very much about Sark, not even Irina, who took him in when he appeared on her doorstep nearly fifteen years ago. 

[_she__ had opened the door one morning to find him there, a small blond-haired boy with the biggest, bluest eyes she'd ever seen. She had asked him "What's your name, little one?" "__Sark__", he had replied with a lisp. "Alistair Sark." He had known his name, and nothing else….he was dressed in raggedy clothing, and by the looks of him, he hadn't had a good meal in quite some time. So she took him in. And she trained him, educated him, turned him into a carbon copy of her. Except, she was determined to make sure that he would never be ordered into the same sort of destructive mission she had been…he would never have to forget who he was…he would never want __to forget who he really was. He was the closest thing to a son she'd ever have, and she did love him, in her own way.]_

Yes, she loved him, in her own way, and that was why it was killing her so much to see him undertake this mission [_I swore that I would never let him do something like this…_].

But there was too much at stake. Sydney would never have accepted that she was destined to give birth to the one in the prophecy, especially not when she learnt that Sark was to be the father. And there is simply too much at stake, too much at risk, to risk the actions of one woman condemning the entire human race [_because what's done will come undone, and the dead will stay dead no longer_].

_The good of the many must bow to the good of the one. Irina Derevko knows this well enough [__lived her life by this, once] and yet she knows Sark and Sydney's child _must_ be born [__for the good of all], and so she forces herself to bury her misgivings about this operation [__I am destroying my daughter's life, someone inside her screams, but she is weak and easily silenced] in the blackest corner of her heart, where nothing grows from lack of light._

So she watches her daughter and her granddaughter, and she sees the day when the one who will bring immortality to all will lie in those arms.

But somewhere deep inside there's someone screaming.

* * *

Arvin Sloane watches the same scene, and sees nothing except the power and wonder that Sydney and Sark's daughter [_sister in everything except birth of the girl _Sydney___ holds in her arms right now] will bring him. He will train her like he did Sydney, groom her in his ways, mould her until she _is_ him in nearly every way…there will be no betrayal, not with her. Not like there was with Sydney._

The daughter of Sydney Bristow and Alistair Sark will be immeasurably talented [_intelligent, from both mother and father/ruthless like her father/beautiful like her mother]. She will be the perfect spy, and the perfect weapon, with the greatest power imaginable._

And she will be his to control. [_Mine. My precious.]_

* * *

A woman and a man both watch this scene. [_two_ of the faces of the devil…the other stands within the scene…_]_

They see through a glass darkly. [_they__ see what they have to gain, and then they attempt to justify their cruelty]_

They don't see the truth. They don't see the purity [_her child is innocent, blameless, pure…peaceful_] and the love [_mother's love for her daughter] within the room, even under all the lies [_even though she's not her daughter_]. _

Because a mother still loves her child, even if the girl Sydney Bristow holds in her arms is not her child by birth.

Sark stands beside the bed, gritting his teeth into an approximation of a smile as he watches his "daughter" and "wife. [_the__ child will keep her bound to me, bind her to me forever. No matter how suspicious she becomes, she won't leave her child. And why is that? Because Sydney Bristow will be a good mother, and because Sydney Bristow has "morals".]_

"Oh, she's beautiful, Danny!" Sydney gushes. "What a perfect little girl you are!" she coos to Laura. [_Laura after your mother, then Grace after my grandmother, _he had told her_]_

She holds her daughter in her arms and taps her nose with the end of her little finger, while her adoring daughter gazes up at her with the biggest, bluest eyes she's ever seen [_she has her father's eyes, but where's the black hair from?_].

She coos and speaks in that gibberish that only babies seem to be able to bring out in even the most sensible people, and she looks incredibly happy.

But inside she's troubled [_she doesn't remember her daughter, her husband…her life_]. She tries to just write it off to the coma and amnesia, but there's still something niggling. 

She keeps having flashes of memories that she doesn't remember having, flashes of memory that don't make any sense [_What was she doing? She sees herself crying, at a pier, then there's a man there with her, and suddenly there's no need to cry…she sees herself kicking a man in the face, but she's wearing someone else's clothes, someone's else's hair…she's a banker_] from what her husband has told her about their lives.

But she holds her daughter in her arms, and everything seems all right. [_but__ the memories keep coming, and she keeps having an irrational wish that her daughter's eyes were green rather than blue]_

She holds her daughter, and everything is all right, even for a moment. 

Because this, this girl in her arms, these blue eyes, these little fingernails, these delicate lips, this wisp of black hair…_this is real_.

_And it is, even underneath all these lies._

_Because a mother loves her child._ No matter what.__


	5. Chapter Four

_CHAPTER FOUR_

_THEN_

So they go to Scotland, and they trace Sloane [_he's using one of his many aliases, one that Jack recognises from SD-6_] to a large country manor on the coast, just near a place called Stranraer, a tiny village with narrow, cobblestone streets [_quaint, Laura would have called it_].

_ It's pretty countryside, beautiful even, but nothing really seems lovely [_nothing seems good_] anymore, not since his daughter disappeared [_longer than that, maybe…since Laura died, he admits silently to himself_]._

He thinks about his daughter a lot these days [_spygirlwomandaughter], about his failure as a father [_abandonmentbetrayalfailureguilttearsrage_], about her mother [_saviourlovermotherspybetrayerhateloveguiltpainblood_]…. _

He abandoned her for so many years, left her to grow up without a mother and not knowing her father – he had left her in the care of others, left her to cry about her problems and share her successes with strangers….

He felt guilty, felt responsible for her fate, for her life as a spy, for the death of her fiancée, for her disappearance now, her captivity in the hands of the most twisted people he'd ever met [_his wife and best friend_].

But the guilt was his, was it not?

_He was the one who created Project Christmas, the one who trained her as a spy, the one who took away her choices in life…..he was the one responsible for her fate._

He was guilty. 

  
Fathers had but one job, one duty [_oh, they had had many duties, but this was the only one that truly mattered_].

_Protect your children._

He hadn't protected her.

He'd abandoned her [_because he looked at her and only saw the loss of everything he'd ever loved, ever wanted_], hurt her [_he'd never forget the look in her eyes when he told her he couldn't come to her high school graduation because he had to work], failed to protect her from the one man he needed to have protected her from [_Arvin Sloane, he reflected, was possibly the most dangerous man in the world_]._

He'd failed his daughter for nearly thirty years. He'd promised himself when he saw her in that garage that day [_strong and beautiful and proud, and oh, so like her mother_], the day she had found out the truth about SD-6, the truth about him, and about her life….he'd promised himself that he would never fail her again.

But he had. 

And so Jack Bristow sat in the middle of a garden, having tea with his daughter's….friend, Mr. Vaughn, reflecting on the haunted, empty look he saw in the younger man's eyes, and knowing that he had once looked like that as well.

It fades in time though, he knows [_he can barely see it when he looks into the mirror now_]. 

The look in Vaughn's eyes is the look that comes from only one thing in this world, Jack knows.

It's the look of a man who has inflicted pain, and knows that he would do it again if it would help him achieve his goals.

It's the look of a good man who has been forced to kill – and knows he will kill again to protect those he loves.

Jack Bristow knows that looks very well indeed, oh yes indeed.

He'd killed many men.

He was good at it.

It was his job, after all, and Jack Bristow was _excellent_ at what he did.

Yes, he'd killed many men, he thinks. [_killed__ them, watched them die, slowly, quickly, screaming, silently…no man dies the same way, he learnt after the first ten or so]_

After awhile, he stopped watching them die in his dreams [_stopped seeing the blood every time he closed his eyes_].

After Laura died [_after Irina betrayed him_], he had almost welcomed the missions.

_Jack, they would say, __we have another job for you._

And part of him would rejoice [_another chance to die, another chance to kill, another chance to allow the guilt/pain/blood of the killing to overwhelm him, take away the pain/betrayal/hate/tortured love that Laura's "death" had caused_] as another part wept inside of him [_the part that wept was the part that still loved her/the part that refused to see her as anything other than his wife/the part that was still innocent]_

Part of him almost enjoyed it [_satisfactionreleasefreedomkillingbloodfreedomdistraction_] after awhile. Part of him still screamed.

* * *

Sloane's house is little more than a farmhouse, really, just an old, rambling house on a large farm.

They raid it, this time just the CIA team [_Jack and Vaughn lead them in, as usual. They all care about her, but these two are obsessed_], six men, storming a deserted house on a beach as the rain falls all around them.

They're tired of the hunt, the search, the hopelessness.

The rain falls from a blue grey sky, and it seems like the heavens are crying. 

The sun doesn't shine, flowers don't bloom.

They raid an empty house.

There's a bedroom upstairs, the only bedroom that looks to have been used.

It's large, and it's airy and clean and big and bright. There's a king-sized bed in the centre, and a crib in the corner.

On the bed there's a warm looking bedspread, with a pretty pink woollen blanket tossed on the corner. 

On the walls there are watercolour paintings, and in the bookshelves are some of her favourite books, a veritable Who's Who in literature.

Vaughn runs his finger along the bookshelf. His finger detects no dust, but his hand shakes slightly as he traces the spines of the book.

_Tolstoy. Anna Karenina. [__I mean, this is Tolstoy-long]_

_A collection of poetry.__ There's a tag marking a page in this book._

_Vaughn, intrigued, opens the book to the marked page._

_  
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways._
    
    I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
    
    My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
    
    For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. 
    
    I love thee to the level of every day's
    
    Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 
    
    I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; 
    
    I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. 
    
    I love thee with the passion put to use
    
    In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 
    
    I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
    
    With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath, 
    
    Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose, 
    
    I shall but love thee better after death.

_- Elizabeth Barrett Browning_

Vaughn closes his eyes, and remembers a night maybe two weeks before Sydney had disappeared [_he remembers, slightly shocked, that it would have been only four weeks ago. It seemed like a lifetime ago._]

_They were both at __Sydney__'s house, lying in her bed early one morning, tired but happy, sunlight streaming in through the blinds on the windows above her bed._

_He rolled onto his back, flinging one arm around as he shifted position._

_"Ouch! Syd, you didn't warn me you were keeping bricks on your dresser now!"_

_He picked up the offending object that he had whacked with his wrist, lifting it gingerly._

_"This thing is massive!" he said, inspecting the massive hardcover book of poetry._

_  
Turning the book over in his hands, he flipped open the book and browsed through the poems inside._

_He stopped as he reached Sonnet _XLIII.__

_"How do I love thee?_

_Let me count the ways…"_

  
_As he read the poem, he turned back on his side, and rested the tip of his index finger on Syd's nose. _

_  
"Wake up, sleepyhead…" he whispered in her ear as she slept on, snoring lightly._

_Very few people knew that Sydney Bristow snored. Michael Vaughn was one of these people, however, and had acquired much information on both how to stop the snoring [roll her onto her side_] as well as how to wake up Sydney Bristow [_she was particularly ticklish in an adorable little spot below her ear that Vaughn knew very well_].__

_But that morning Vaughn was more than prepared to let his lover sleep while he whispered poetry in her ear._

_He stared at her for a few more minutes before he returned to the book, taking in every feature of her face, her neck, her ears, her arms…he loved seeing her like this, his strong, delicate, beautiful, kick-ass angel sleeping in his arms…she rarely looked quite so peaceful, so happy as when she slept. It was only in sleep that she was free, even now, it seemed._

_So he read the poem to her, as he traced the lines of her face with his fingers._

_Once he finished the poem, her eyes sprang open, and she began to giggle._

_"Good morning, Mr. Vaughn!"_

_"You were awake all this time?!"_

_  
She just giggled harder now, and then asked mischievously, "Would you like to show me exactly how you love me?"_

_"Is that a challenge, Miss Bristow?"_

_"Do you want it to be a challenge, Agent Vaughn?" she replied coquettishly._

_  
"That's it. You're on."_

_He pinned her wrists to the bed and began to kiss a line down her forehead, past her nose, to her lips, and jaw, and chin and…well, he didn't stop going, let's just put it that way._

Vaughn blushes slightly at the memory, suddenly very aware that Sydney's father is standing behind him, wondering what is quite so fascinating about a book of poetry.

But he flips to the front of the book before returning it to the shelf, looking around as he does so.

But it is there, in the front of the book, where he sees something that makes his blood freeze in his veins.

He can hear his heart beating. There is nothing else besides this book, and the words inscribed on the inside front cover.

"_Dear Sydney,_

_With all my love,_

_Danny, Christmas 2002"_

Danny died in September of 2001.

Yet there is a message here dated a year and a half later.

Out of the book falls a photograph.

If the message in the book confused Vaughn, the photograph destroyed him.

It is nothing more than a simple, lonely, colour photograph of Sydney and a man Vaughn and Jack both recognise as Sark.

They have their arms around each other, and Sydney holds a baby in her arms, swaddled in a fuzzy pink blanket.

They look happy.

They look…..like they're in love.

Vaughn's heart stops, and he tries to remember to breathe.

[_what__ is this? Whose child is that? Why are they together? Where are they?]_

there are many questions that Michael Vaughn have for Sydney Bristow at that one moment in time.

The most important, the one shouting loudest to be heard in the haphazard storm of emotions inside his mind is this.

_Who are you, and why have they done to you?_

But there's a little voice inside his head asking '_Why have you betrayed me?_'

* * *

Eric Weiss thinks that seeing Vaughn completely destroy that bedroom would have been easier than seeing his reaction to this photograph.

He didn't do anything, didn't fly into a wild rage, cursing in French, throwing items around the room.

He stood there, motionless, his face a blank.

Eric Weiss has never seen his best friend look less like Michael Vaughn, and more like Jack Bristow, in his life.

Jack simply stands there, watching Vaughn.

* * *

Inside Vaughn's head, he's aware of Jack watching him out of the corner of his eye.

He wonders [_rather irrationally, the saner side of him says] whether or not betrayal runs in the family for Bristow women._

Jack was betrayed by the one he loved, Sydney's mother.

Vaughn's father was killed by that same woman.

Irina Derevko destroyed Vaughn's life once, by taking away the father he barely knew, by stealing from him his childhood, from depriving his mother of the man she loved.

Irina Derevko destroyed Jack Bristow once as well, by taking his love, the pure love of their wedding vows, and twisting it into something corrupt and dirty. She took his love and used it to destroy him.

Now, he reflects [_bitterly/irrationally/sadly/hopelessly_], perhaps Sydney has destroyed us both [_true daughter of Irina Derevko?_].

He loved her more than he loved life itself, and the thought that she had betrayed him was almost too much to bear.

He felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his heart, like someone had reached inside his chest and ripped out his heart, still pumping blood….it hurt like a part of him was missing, lost, gone forever….

He looked at Jack Bristow, and suddenly understands so much about this man.

Michael Vaughn wants to shout, curse, scream, wants to throw things, hit things, hurt things.

But he can't let go, can't let himself lose control, because he knows that he would never be able to regain control.

So he shuts himself down, controls his emotions, becomes numb, motionless, still.

He becomes Jack Bristow, and he finally understands his lover's father, the cool, emotionless, ruthless demeanour.

He understands that Jack Bristow acts like a heartless bastard because he had a choice once, the same choice Michael Vaughn faces now.

You have a heart of stone, or you hurt people to try and release the pain you feel.

Jack Bristow chose the heart of stone.

So, it seems, will Michael Vaughn.

They're more alike than they'd like to admit, certainly, both hopelessly devoted to protecting Sydney Bristow, both destroyed by Irina Derevko's treachery, both believing protocol to be a dirty word, both wanting nothing more than the love of their lives back but doubting whether or not their fairytale has a happy ending….

They both chose control over emotion when faced with the betrayal by the most important person in their lives [_spyloverkillertraitor__?], because they knew that once they had relinquished control, they would never regain it, and they still had too much to lose [_opportunity for revenge?_] to do that._

Both men stand here in a farmhouse, their lives destroyed by the same woman.

Michael Vaughn wonders how his life led to this place. [_How did I get like this, Jack? How did I become you?_]

Jack Bristow simply wonders what's next. He long ago discovered how his life led him to this place [_he had a normal life once, but those days are long gone…those days died when she did_].

They are united by a common torment.

They love her and they hate her by turns, love her for who she is, for her beauty, her grace, her skill, her intelligence…..hate her for making them love her, even as she betrays them.

She betrays them, rips their hearts from their chests, kills them, tortures them….and still they can't bring themselves to hate her, no matter how hard they try.

They want to hate her, but they can't.

She destroyed their lives, and still they would readily come back for more if she offered. She's addictive, and destructive, and they are drawn to her like moths to a lamp, growing more and more intoxicated by her as she draws them closer to their doom.

They want to hate her, but they can't, because their love for her is too strong.


	6. Chapter Five

_CHAPTER FIVE_

_THEN [AND NOW]_

They go back to LA, utterly forlorn and completely without hope [_shattered, empty vessels that once held men]._

Jack Bristow thinks [_no, he **knows**_] that the pain of the death of a loved one [_carcrashdisappearancethirtyyears] can only be matched, only be surpassed by the betrayal [__pictureloveSarkhow?KGBtraitortraitortraitor] of one closest to you._

He knows this [_was completely destroyed by this.]_

And now, he reflects bitterly, Michael Vaughn knows this.

The younger man does not speak on the flight, does not eat, does not sleep. 

He sits there, his face torn between anger [_furyragebetrayal_] and sadness [_griefpainhurtbetrayed_].

He doesn't know what to believe, what to think, what to _do_. 

There was a photo of the woman he loved [_love doesn't begin to describe it, he thinks bitterly to himself_] in a bedroom of a Scottish farmhouse.

She was alive. [_at least she isn't dead…wasn't dead]_

She was standing next to a man Vaughn knows only as Mr. Sark.

He's dangerous. Treacherous. A hired gun, an assassin. 

Sydney isn't safe with him.

And yet he was hugging her in the picture [_he stood behind her, arms wrapped possessively around her waist/she hadn't pushed him away_], his head nestled on her shoulder, looking down at a swaddle of pink blankets in her arms [_babyblankets?baby?baby?_**baby?].**

Sydney wasn't pregnant. [_there would have been signs, his brain screamed. blood tests. morning sickness. evidence._]

So there is a mystery baby, Vaughn concludes.

A baby, in Sydney's arms. A baby in Sydney's arms in a photo of Sark and Sydney [_theylooklikethey'reinlove_].

_Has she betrayed him? Was it all a lie?_

_Was it all another act, one more disguise? _

_Does she have another handler somewhere, someone who told her how to win my heart [steal my heart/soul/everything_]_?_

She deceived Sloane and SD-6 for so long [_deceived the world/her friends/her lovers_]…could she have deceived him for just as long?

Vaughn doesn't want to believe this of her, but doesn't know whether or not his refusal to believe it comes from desperation [_despairlovegriefsorrowabsoluteandutterdespair_] or from intuition ["_I have a feeling," he had told her the first time he met her._]

Does he not believe that she is capable of this treachery because of his love [_his "emotional attachment" to her/against protocol] for her, or because he believes that she was real when she was with him [_surely that could not have been pretend?_]._

Michael Vaughn does not know what to believe, what to think, what to _do._

He looks over at Jack Bristow and finally understands everything.

He understands the cold exterior [_because if you let go you would never regain control of yourself_].

He understands his absence during Sydney's childhood. [_she is his salvation and his downfall, all wrapped up into one neat little package…when he looks into her eyes, he sees his wife's face_]

He understands his ruthlessness, his disregard for _everything_. 

He understands Jack Bristow better than anyone would probably want him to understand Jack Bristow – better than Jack Bristow would want anyone to understand Jack Bristow.

Oh, yes, he understands everything now.

He understands everything except that which is most important – he cannot understand that one photo, that one simple image that proves both that she is alive, but at the same time is dead to them.

And he wonders whether or not the person that he loved more than his life itself [_he would rather die than give her up, he thinks…he sold his soul for her!] betrayed him, if his sacrifice [__the sins committed in her name…the torture,  the pain, the blood split…] was for nothing, and he wants to break down and cry, but he knows he can't [__"Mikey, you have to be a man, you know, know that your Daddy's gone…you can't let people see you cry! What would they think? You've got to be strong. Be a man. Make Daddy proud…"], because he'd never be able to stop._

He sold his soul for her, and now he doesn't know if she ever loved him [_was it just empty words?], if any of the sweet nothings whispered in his ears late at night were true, if the sounds she made when he kissed her, whether or not it was all a fake, another disguise [__like Russian dolls, layers inside layers inside layers], just another role for the great and wonderful Sydney Bristow to play._

He wonders if she ever laughed at his ignorance [_because he'd never suspected a thing, had he?_]

And yet a little voice whispers in his head words that he does not want to hear: it asks a question he cannot answer. "_Would you prefer her dead, or a traitor?_"

He can't answer this, but some part of him wonders if he believed her a traitor so readily because betraying them would mean that she would still be alive….and where there is life there is a possibility of redemption [_maybe…]. _

But these are just empty questions, ultimately. 

So he sits in the plane over the Atlantic, and he looks out the window, at the nothingness below.

And he wonders how Jack Bristow took the news of his wife's betrayal.

* * *

**_He remembers the first time he told her he loved her._**

_* * *_

**He had just been shot by that bastard ****Sark**** [_he stood at the top of the stairs, gun in his hand/he could see the bullet coming, but wasn't fast enough to dodge]._**

_[They were holding hands, lying down on a picnic blanket in a park. It was autumn, and all around them leaves were falling, red, and gold. It was beautiful – she was beautiful.]_

**She ran down the stairs, kissed his forehead, ripped open his jacket to reveal the Kevlar vest underneath that had stopped the bullet short of his heart. "Vaughn, Vaughn…you okay?" she asked anxiously [_worriedconcernednowyouknowwhatthisislike]._**

[_She was reading a book, something for one of her classes. He lay on his back, watching the leaves fall. She was adorable when she read, when her nose crinkled just like…that. __"Laura," he whined plaintively, "Put down that book!"_

_She, quite wisely [in her opinion_] ignored him, only to be surprised a few minutes later by a pair of arms sneaking around her waist and snatching the book away._]_

**"Yeah, Syd, I'm okay," he replied gingerly [_he was sure he'd broken at least one rib], watching her forehead and nose scrunch up in worry. _**

**  
"Are you sure?"**

**"Yeah, I'm fine. We can't waste anymore time here Syd," he said, letting her help him to his feet.**

[_He threw the book away into a pile of leaves, prompting a squeak of outrage. _

_"Jack! I was reading that!"_

_"Was, Laura, was reading that." He grinned at her annoyed expression, pinning her down onto the blanket and proceeding to tickle her senseless.  
  
"Oof! Jack! That tickles!" she exclaimed loudly._

_"I know," he replied, still grinning like a loon.]_

**She hugged him once he got to his feet, and he held onto her tightly [_hold me like you'll never let me go, he begged silently_], as if she was his life itself [_because she was in so many ways]._**

**He kissed her forehead gently and whispered into her ear, "I love you." **

**"I know," she replied, kissing him back. "I know."**

[_He stopped tickling her suddenly, far too mesmerized by her eyes to keep up the tickling._

_Tilting his head slightly, he kissed her on the forehead, and then each corner of her mouth, and her eyelids…"Have I told you lately exactly how beautiful you are?"_

_  
She shook her head, grinning equally mischievously as they continued their little game._

_"Tell me," she suggested slyly._

_"Well, I particularly like this spot here," he replied, kissing a spot on her neck, "and these points here," with this, he placed a kiss on each corner of her mouth, "and of course here," he finished, kissing the tip of her nose._

_"Of course, I like all these points, but if I was to single them out individually we'd be here all day, and I'm getting a bit cold…"_

_He went serious suddenly, and his eyes darkened. "I love you, you know."_

_"I know," was all that she replied.]_

_* * *_

**_The first time they met._**

_  
* * *_

_He was in a small bookstore somewhere in LA…the bookstore is now long gone, and the beautiful little antique shopping district where it was located was long ago replaced by a big mall. _

_He was browsing in the classics section…looking for a new copy of To Kill A Mockingbird_, he thinks. A tree branch had broken a window in a rare electrical storm, letting in torrential rain and soaking his copy of the book completely. __

_He couldn't find the book anywhere. Exasperated, he had turned to leave when a rather striking [beautiful, actually__] young woman had walked up behind him and handed him the last copy that the store had. He wondered out loud how she had known what he was looking for…she simply laughed softly and told him that he had been muttering the title rather loudly. He was quite embarrassed at this, I remembers. _

_He had never been the most confident of men with women…especially not those as beautiful as Laura was.  But she took pity on him and introduced herself._

"I'm Laura Young. And you're a fan of Harper Lee, I take it?" _She offered her hand. He had stared blankly for a few seconds before accepting her proffered hand and shaking it lightly. _

"Ah…yes. Jack Bristow. Pleased to meet you, Laura. My old copy got soaked in that storm recently and I…"

_He had started to ramble a little, before she laughed again, and this time he noticed how musical her laugh was. He had turned red from embarrassment, she told me later, rather amused._

"Well, Jack, I'm actually just about to have a cup of coffee. Would you care to join me? I hate to sit alone." 

_Well, how could he have refused such a lovely lady's invitation? He said as much, and followed her to a small table [that's right…I remember now the reason I frequented that store so much…its owner was a fantastic cook, and made incredible coffee_] outside the store. __

_It was a bright, clear, fine day, a very unusual LA day. It was a beautiful day, the sun shone brightly, and he was having coffee with the most beautiful woman he had ever had the pleasure of meeting. What more could a man want?  _

_The owner, a Mr. Martov, rushed over to our table and took their order – she took her coffee black, no cream or sugar. A very Russian trait, now that he thinks back upon everything. He thinks he must have been so…intoxicated by her presence, even then, that he ignored the little things that must have been so glaringly obvious to others. He wonders now perhaps how much of our "chance" meeting was chance, and how much a carefully orchestrated ploy. Mr. Martov, he'd long concluded, was a KGB sleeper agent. The bookstore located so close to his apartment, a setup. The destruction of the book? Well, that might_ have been a coincidence. __

_As they sipped our coffee, they talked – first of the weather, as strangers are prone to do, then of the neighbourhood_ [she lived three blocks from his building, he learnt], and then of books. She was a post-grad literature student, and Oscar Wilde was one of her favourite___ authors. _

_They sat and talked for hours, and he began to put together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that was the woman he thought was Laura Young. He learnt the name of her dog [Darcy, after the Pride and Prejudice character]; _he discovered that she was originally from __Wisconsin___ [close enough to Russia, he supposes…__] and that she loved the cold and hated the heat; she was an only child and that her parents had died two years ago in a plane crash. He in turn told her that he worked for the government [just boring stuff, though]; he told her that he'd never been in love, and that he preferred reading to watching television. He told her that I had a degree in politics and international relations, and that I had nearly chosen a degree in engineering over politics, but had been sucked in by the promise of serving my country [in this, at least, we shared something; we both would do anything our country asked of us…she sold her body and her soul; I sold everything I had…twice.__] He told her that he liked classical music and the Beatles. _

_He only realized many years later that the odds were that she knew his past better than he did._

_It was nearly four hours later when she announced that she had to meet some friends for a friend's birthday party. He asked if maybe they could catch the local production of To Kill A Mockingbird __together sometime?_

_"I'd be delighted, Jack__. Here's my number,_"_ __she replied, tearing a corner of her napkin off and scribbling a number with a pen fished from her backpack. And like that, she was off. _

_Jack Bristow just stared numbly. She was graceful, witty, beautiful, intelligent, yes…but she had an indescribable quality that surpassed physical beauty. She was…she had charisma.__ He was drawn to her like moths are drawn to a lamp – hopelessly entrapped by the light, even as it lures them unknowingly to their doom. _

_Jack Bristow was hooked, sunk and captured, all in one chance meeting - he just didn't know it yet._

Michael Vaughn lived his life by the book.

He worked hard.

He was a patriot, serving his country.

He kept in shape, which in turn kept his doctor happy.

He rang his mother every Sunday afternoon, just to check in.

He fed his dog Donovan every morning, at almost exactly 6am, after he had woken up.

He had a pretty blonde girlfriend, Alice, who worked in advertising and liked going sailing on weekends.

He had a routine, a pattern – he had order to his life. 

He had, as a matter of fact, a reasonably happy life. A normal life, as a matter of fact.

That all changed on October 1st, 2001.

The day Sydney Bristow entered Michael Vaughn's life, everything changed.

It was love at first sight [_he knows it sounds like something from a bad romance novel, but its true_].__

She sat in his office, perfectly still, eyes dark and bloodshot, mouth bloody and missing teeth, with the brightest, bozo-red hair he's ever seen.

And yet she's still beautiful.

  
She's strong, that much is evident [_not just physically, but mentally as well_], but vulnerable at the same time, a walking ball of contradictions.

He's never seen anyone so incredibly strong and resilient but at the same time as close to tears with every word.__

She's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and he's just fallen head over heels for the one person he knows he cannot [_is forbidden to] develop feelings for._

His normal life ends today; ends here in this place, this office, with this woman sitting in front of this man.

His life will never be the same again, however much he might try to deny it [_he kept going out with __Alice__, because the easiest person to lie to is yourself], however much he might try to fight it [__he doesn't want to love her but he does, so much]._

He loves her.

He's loved her ever since he met her.

He thought he had a happy life, a good life before he met her, but he thinks he must have been living life blind before then.

He doesn't know how he lived without her in his life, doesn't know how he was ever satisfied with anything [_with anyone_] except [_before_] her.

He's hers, body, heart, soul [_hooked, sunk, captured? surely not_]. From the moment she walked in, he thinks that if she had asked for the moon, he would have killed himself trying to get it for her.

He broke into the Vatican with her, went to Taipei, contracted a near-incurable disease because of her.

He's taken risks he never suspected he would, done things no one in their right mind would ever do [_not for anything short of love_].

He loves her.

He always has [_even when he hated her for making him love her_], and he always will.

And in the end, that's the one overriding truth of Michael Vaughn's life – that he loves Sydney Bristow.

That's all he is, when he gets right down to it – he's hers [_or she is his]. His work [__protect her], his life [__love her], his everything [__care for her]._

He didn't ask for it to be this way [_never thought he would want it to be like this_]. 

He never wanted the sleepless nights, tossing and turning alone in bed wondering if the woman he loved was safe.

He never wanted to have to lie to his best friend [_"trust is a tricky thing."]_

He never wanted to be consumed by his love for someone. He had always been independent, in control of his life, no one's slave.

And yet he was consumed by his love for her [_and it was glorious and it was extraordinary and it was wonderful and it was painful and it was terrible and it was the best and the worst thing that had ever happened to him but he certainly didn't want it to end], taken over by the pain and the glory and the overwhelming idea that maybe a normal life [_normal girlfriend, order in life_] wasn't what he really wanted [_wasn't what he really needed_], and that maybe what he wanted was everything he could not have._

Michael Vaughn's life changed [_for the better or the worse, who can tell?_] the day he met Sydney Bristow. 

That's all he knows anymore.


	7. Chapter Six

Um, here's the next chapter everyone, but I'd like to add an extra warning before you read this...it's not pleasant, okay? Some of the stuff Sloane and Irina do to Syd in here is....disturbing. And slightly sadistic. And not exactly S/V friendly either, but let's just remember that I am a DEVOTED S/V SHIPPER!  
  
WE SHALL BELIEVE, okay?  
  
And we shall try and get the chapters out more frequently too.   
  
And the reason why there's no dedication on this one is becuase of the previous note...  
  
_CHAPTER SIX__  
THEN [AND NOW]_  
  
_Iloveyouiloveyouiloveyouhelpmehelpmyself_  
  
She pushes at the barriers, shoving aside the heavy, solid brick walls [_let me out let me in_]  
  
She's in a dark alleyway, somewhere she's been before…it's raining-  
  
She's drenched to the bone, crying   
  
[_you took away my choices in life_]  
  
she's in his arms  
  
it's safe  
  
_want to stay here forever__  
  
please don't send me back  
  
don't go don't go don't go don't go_  
  
but he's slipping away  
  
_green eyes green eyes green eyes man who haunts my dreams stay awhile please who are you?_  
  
Green goes black/black goes white/white goes blue  
  
_Blue eyes blue eyes blue eyes why is this wrong?_  
  
"Darling, what's wrong?"  
  
She's sweating heavily, flat on her back in bed.  
  
It's the fourth nightmare in as many days.  
  
"Nothing. Nothing's wrong, Danny. Go back to sleep. I'm fine."  
  
Her words are hollow, empty, but the lies roll easily off her tongue.  
  
That's something she's noticed lately. Lies come easily to her [_too easily_].  
  
And sometimes when she's driving she checks to make sure that no one's following her.  
  
She has flashes sometimes, flashes of people she doesn't know [_a caring woman, dark skinned, concerned, crying alongside her/a blond haired, blue eyed guy with preppy clothes_] places she's never been [_a icy place, bitterly cold/a graveyard, grass around the graves except for one muddy patch/a funeral – two, actually_].  
  
She sees things she shouldn't [_pier/tears/trainstation/iminifyouneedme/restaurantweshouldgiveitproperconsideration_]. She does things that are wrong [_she's a banker, but she's terrible at maths_].  
  
But she's happy [_or so she says to herself_].   
  
She has an adoring husband, a wonderful daughter, a beautiful home.  
  
She smiles during the day [_but wakes to nightmares about green eyes at night._]  
  
Everything's right but everything's wrong.  
  
* * *  
She's walking in a park one day when she sees a man playing with a dog and freezes.  
  
[_see__ you when I get back then/actually no, you won't/I've been reassigned/My guardian angel_]  
  
She shakes her head violently, muttering under her breath about ghosts and green eyed men.  
  
She writes it off as déjà vu.   
  
  
* * *  
The next time it's the sight of her husband's mother [_tall, dark haired woman, with a vaguely European, not British accent_]  
  
She's familiar [_curiously so, as a matter of fact __Sydney__ muses_].  
  
"Hello, Sydney dear!"  
  
She's taken aback a little by this enthusiastic welcome [_she has a flash of another welcome/**I've waited thirty years for this…**_] and doesn't exactly know how to respond.  
  
"It's good to see you again, [_LauraIrinaMom__?_] Irina."   
  
Irina [_yes, yes, that was a safe name_] kisses her daughter-in-law [_daughter in fact_] on the cheek and walks over to her granddaughter's cot.  
  
"Hello, sweetheart," she coos [_not the One, but adorable nonetheless, Laura muses over the girl who bears her name_], petting the now year old baby girl on the head, stroking the dark curls gently.  
  
* * *  
  
The nightmares that night were more vivid than usual, Sydney remembers with a shudder.  
  
_Truth takes time/a sharp sudden pain in her shoulder/there's no drug like adrenaline/__  
  
Dad tells me you're going to Panama/I want you to know, Sydney, I love you/I haven't earned very much/  
  
Truth takes time  
  
Earrings beeping/  
  
Truth takes time  
  
morse code/  
  
**Truth takes time**_  
  
* * *  
  
She wakes screaming again [_bites tongue so hard she draws blood to try to stop the screams from waking Danny and Laura_]  
  
Sark lies beside her, a reasonably happy man [_"loving" wife, pretty baby daughter, nice home…what more could a man want?_]  
  
Sydney, he thinks, suspects nothing of her previous life [_that's the way they want it, after all_].  
  
It's a pleasing thought, really, to know that your once worse enemy now sleeps peacefully [_or so he thinks_] beside you at night, oblivious of her previous life [_spy, meet banker. Spy, become banker. Banker, become wife. Wife, become mother.]_  
  
But when Sydney wakes beside him screaming "Vaughn!" and sobbing "Please, just hold me," over and over [_will she ever shut up, he asks silently_], even Alistair Sark [_"Danny Hecht" now, he reminds himself. Danny. Always Danny_] must admit that there is a problem.  
  
* * *  
Arvin Sloane looks up from his work the next day to find a not exactly welcome guest.  
  
"Mr. Sark." His words are harsh, clipped [_he shouldn't be here._]  
  
"Hello, Arvin."  
  
Sloane frowns at this rather unwelcome use of his first name, but doesn't kick him out of his office [_not that he's not tempted, of course_], but instead interjects firmly before Sark continues speaking.   
  
"Sark! What are you doing here? I thought we'd discussed this already. Sydney cannot be allowed to suspect any links between us except for the normal family connections."  
  
"Oh, relax, Arvin. Sydney will just think I'm here playing the doting husband and making a surprise visit to my lovely wife," Sark drawled nauseatingly, "She really has no idea, does she?"  
  
"She certainly shouldn't have any idea. That was what the treatments were for, after all."  
  
"Well then, I'm afraid to admit that they've failed."  
  
"What do you mean they've failed?"   
  
He's up out of his chair by now, obviously enraged, wondering where on earth this British upstart got off by telling him that his doctors [_the finest around_] had failed.  
  
"I mean that last night she woke screaming the name of her CIA handler."  
  
"Mr. Vaughn."  
  
"Yes."  
  
He sits back down a bit deflated [_like a pompous hot air balloon that's had all it's air taken away from it, Sark reflects with great satisfaction_], certainly not having expected this.  
  
"This...is most unusual. And it certainly shouldn't have happened. It really is a pity we had to dispose of the scientists responsible for this treatment…but they just posed too great a security risk to take a chance with…" he muses, turning over possible solutions to this most unexpected problem.  
  
"All right, Sark. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I'll let you know how we decide to proceed."  
  
And with the pressing of a button on Sloane's desk, the doors to his office fly open, obviously "inviting" Sark to leave.  
  
Sark exits, muttering under his breath, a characteristically "Sarkian" sneer on his face.  
  
* * *  
  
When Sark gets home, there's an email waiting for him in his inbox, directing him to take Laura to a nearby park once Sydney gets home.  
  
He exits from his mail program and quickly wipes a guilty expression from his face as he hears a key in the lock of the front door.  
  
"Oh, hello sweetheart!" he says, walking over to kiss Sydney on the cheek and take some shopping bags from her hands, "And how's Daddy's little angel today?"  
  
"Alice said she slept well this afternoon, but I'm afraid she won't sleep well tonight. And I'm getting a headache."  
  
"Syd, why don't you go and have a nap while I take Laura out to the park to tire her out?"  
  
"Would you?"  
  
"It's fine- I could really do with the exercise, actually."  
  
"Great," she says, handing Laura to Danny [_he's never liked children-it's probably the hardest part of this cover_].  
  
He walks out of the house [_it was a rather lavish house, he thought, almost too lavish-well, too ornate, anyway, he thought-he preferred a more modern, sleek design_], his "daughter" in his arms, and his wife off to bed.  
  
* * *  
  
Twenty minutes later, Sloane knocked on the door to Sydney's bedroom [_he had had a key to the Hecht's house made without their knowledge sometime ago, just in case something like this happened_].  
  
Hearing no sound coming from within, he opened the door quietly and looked in. Seeing only Sydney's sleeping form, he gestured the team [_eight ex-Army commandos, two medics, because it never hurts to be safer rather than sorry, especially when Sydney Bristow is involved_] into the room.  
  
"Treat her carefully," he cautioned the team. "We don't want any visible injuries, remember. She can't remember any of this."  
  
One of the medics slowly injected something into Sydney's arm, "It's just a sedative, in case she wakes up, Mr. Sloane."  
  
"Good. Now let's get out of here."  
  
They loaded her onto a stretcher and carried her out carefully, down the back stairs and into a delivery van parked at the back of the house.  
  
* * *  
  
Irina watched in pain as the medics went to work on her daughter, hating herself [_hating her daughter, hating Rambaldi and his prophecy, hating Arvin Sloane…hating the people who took both her and her daughter and put them on this twisted path, puppets of a 15th century _**prophet**] as she saw her daughter cry out in pain as they sent an electric jolt throughout her body.  
  
Sydney wore a set of headphones on her ears. Irina knew exactly what was being played through them [_how can I call myself a mother after this?_]-as a matter of fact, she had gathered the tapes being played through some of her CIA sources.  
  
There was a warehouse, Irina knew, where Sydney and her handler Vaughn had met regularly to discuss her missions.  
  
The CIA [_or, more correctly, Steven Haladki_] had bugged this warehouse early in Sydney's first year of work within the real CIA, as part of an investigation into the emotional tie between Sydney and Agent Vaughn.  
  
Even after Haladki's death at the hands of Irina's husband, the bugs had continued to transmit, resulting in hours of conversation between the two, even after SD-6's "destruction".  
  
Irina slowly picks up the set of headphones attached to the computer console in front of her in the glassed-in viewing room above the chamber where Sydney was being tortured.  
  
She determinedly puts them on her own ears, resolute that if she was to torture her own daughter [_her own flesh and blood_] like this, then the least she could do to make things more equal [_least she could do to punish herself for doing this to her child_] was to listen to the same words her daughter was.  
  
**_"You look really pretty tonight."_**_  
  
"You know you can talk to me about your mother/I know that doing that is harder for you than you make it seem/ Well, it's my job/Vaughn, she killed your father/ Yes, thank you/You don't have to pretend with me/And you don't have to withhold/ All I'm saying is that it's unfair/Well, maybe so, but I certainly didn't join the CIA looking for fairness! After everything she's done to you, are those things you could ever forgive?"  
  
**"When you ever feel you're alone in all of this…I'm your ally. Never question that."**  
  
"I don't think I can ever forgive my father for the things he's done, but maybe he's right about what he's been saying all along…. Maybe her cooperation is part of some elaborate strategy he's more equipped to see than I am/Look, your father's asking you to let her die for something she might do. I don't think you can live with that."  
  
**"This watch belonged to my father. It's broken now, but it used to keep perfect time. And when he gave it to me, he said, "You could set your heart by this watch." It stopped October 1st -- the day we met."****  
  
"I didn't want you to have more on your mind/Why are you worrying about what's on my mind?/It was a judgment call/It's a judgment call you've been making for the past three months!/Involving you had no upside/There's no upside to keeping me informed? You didn't tell me about Monolo or that you had discussions with my mother! You didn't even tell me that you were seeing **_**_Alice_****_ again!/ Wait. What is this about?/This is about me being too old to be coddled!/Your life is complicated, _****_Sydney_****_! Forgive me for trying to make it any easier!/I don't need you for that!"_**  
  
And then, as the hours of recordings from their warehouse rendezvous finished [_she used the place as a refuge…we have destroyed that now, haven't we? No, Irina, Laura whispered from her cage within her hollow heart, _**you** _destroyed that for her. Not us. You._], the tapes of recordings that Sloane's LA asset, a woman once known as Allison Doren, now Sydney's roommate, Francie [_courtesy of Markovic's cloning device, apparently_] had collected from bugs planted in Sydney's apartment itself.  
  
_"You're so beautiful/Dinner's ready/We have an oven, you know. We can reheat."__  
  
"I'm the point guy./You're the point guy./I'm the point guy."_  
  
She couldn't bear to listen much longer after this, couldn't bear to watch as they electro-shocked her daughter.  
  
She knew the theory behind this "treatment": the subject would be exposed to something benign, like a certain type of flowers [_it was always orchids that they used, she mused absently_]……or the voice of a loved one. They would be given an electric shock while exposed to this benign object, and eventually, given a certain length of time [_the greater the shock, the less amount of time required_], the subject would begin to associate the pain with the object.  
  
And so, she knew, every time Sydney spoke of, or heard spoken, Vaughn's name, or even so much as thought of him, she would remember [_and experience_] this pain.  
  
It was the ultimate weapon for turning someone against another. It was sick enough that only the mind of Arvin Sloane, however, could possibly comprehend using it in this way.  
  
Because, she knew, now, after some hypnosis to erase all of Sydney's conscious memories of this event, the mere thought of Vaughn would be enough to make Sydney remember [_and experience_] the pain she was suffering now.  
  
The sight of the man [_the man who loved her so deeply that he would face the woman who killed his father…face you, Laura whispered again[i]] who had meant so much to her would probably cause her to pass out from the pain, she thought. [[i]What a cruel, twisted game we play…first we destroy her life, now we take away whatever chance she has of rejoining the one she loves…_]   
  
So, she reflected bitterly, she would destroy her daughter's chances of happiness with one man as Arvin Sloane had.  
  
_Irina_, Laura mocked, _how can you call yourself a mother?_  
  
"I can't," she whispered to herself, biting her lip as she watched the scene below her, memerized [_no, not memerized…caught/trapped/ensnared_] by her daughter's pain.  
  
Her daughter and her husband [_lovebetrayalhatepain_] were the only people able to break Irina Derevko out of her shell, the only people who allowed Laura Bristow to resurface even for a short time [_I love you, Sydney/My love for you and your father was not a contrivance_]…they made her weak [_Laura is weak. Laura is human. Laura is emotional_], and maybe, she thinks, maybe that is why she hates them [_loves them_] so much.  
  
They make her human, and that is not something that Irina Derevko enjoys being [_weak/flawed/emotional/real/strong/resilient/fragile/human_].  
  
* * *  
  
And so she watches her daughter's torture, and she tries to resist Laura's screams [_for Laura always did love her daughter, didn't she?_] from the deepest corner of her heart [_the darkest place, where the sun doesn't shine and plants don't grow_]…she tries to resist being human.  
But she can't, because she is human, and because Irina Derevko, even underneath all of the scars and pain and lies [_underneath all of Rambaldi's prophecy, underneath all of the betrayal, underneath all of the blood_] still has a heart.  
And because she still loves her daughter, no matter how much she tries to fight it.  
  
* * *  
  
And so Sydney Bristow screams for her lover while her mother watches on, trying to fight against everything that makes her love her daughter.  
  
  
Um...yeah. Ouch, huh?   
  
And everyone was wondering why this chapter was taking me so long!  
  
Ooh, and really off topically - HARRY POTTER FIVE IS OUT IN *counts on fingers* TWO DAYS! EEE!!!  
  
*calms down*  
  
Anyway, please read and review....and thanks as always for the reviews!  
  
Em [thanks for sticking with me through this, everyone. I couldn't have done it without you.]


	8. Chapter Seven

DISCLAIMER - None of this is mine.....the Alias characters and world belong to the superbly talented JJ Abrams, and the lines "The avalanche has started, and it is too late for the pebbles to vote", as well as "We know only that it is always born in pain" both come from _Babylon 5_, and as such are not owned by me either.....drat.  
  
_CHAPTER SEVEN  
THEN AND NOW  
  
It is about to begin  
  
It has started  
  
It has ended  
  
Is it the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning?  
  
who can tell?  
  
Everything has fallen, everything has shattered  
  
Broken men litter the way  
  
One thing we know   
  
The avalanche has started, and it is too late for the pebbles to vote_  
  
* * *   
  
He rests his head on his arms on the flight back, a broken man.  
  
Jack watches him carefully, seeing in Michael Vaughn the man he was twenty years ago [_  
angry broken desperate hurt betrayed unbelieving_].  
  
He knows what he's thinking, what he wants to do [_burnangerfirerageletitoutletitoutexplodeimplodeburn_]…..but he also knows that it doesn't help.  
  
He knows that rage doesn't make the pain go away….it just replaces it for a little while, substitutes the dark ache of betrayal with the cool relief of a temper appeased [_for a while, at least_]…..It's as addictive as any drug, but in the end it's just a temporary fix, and every time you shoot up [_every time you let go/lose control_], you need a stronger hit [_you need more chaos to fill the hole where your heart once was_].  
  
He knows these things because he's lived this life [_this nightmare_] before. He's lived with the lies and the pain and the guilt and the hole in the chest where his heart used to be before it got ripped out and torn to shreds by the only woman he's ever loved.  
  
He's lived what Michael Vaughn's living now, and he knows every corner of the dark, dank hellhole he's trapped in.  
  
* * *  
  
Jack Bristow killed his first man in cold blood the week after his wife died, on a quick mission in Washington.  
  
It was an easy mission, a simple one. In and out, they told him.   
  
Just retrieve some information from a senator's aide who'd been passing information to the KGB.  
  
Easy. Quick. No mess, no blood, no one gets hurt, right?  
  
What awaited Jack in Washington was an assassination.  
  
He killed the man who was never a senator's aide to begin with but a Russian sleeper agent, while he lay asleep next to his wife.  
  
He didn't know why it felt so good to hurt someone else, but it did.  
  
Maybe it just felt good to know that someone else had a hole in their heart as well.  
  
  
* * *  
  
"I'm sorry for your loss, Agent Bristow, but we simply cannot afford to devote any more resources to this mission. Not with the recent wars in the Middle East. Right now our priority has to be on getting quality HUMINT intelligence from inside the terrorist groups."  
  
Kendall stands at the head of the conference table, looking precisely as pompous as normal, Jack reflected. _He's always been an absolute ass, but this really does take the cake._  
  
"I'm sorry, but I missed the part where you explained how we were supposed to gather HUMINT from _Arabic_ terrorist groups, since none of us seem to have an appearance suitable for infiltration…..sir."   
  
He squeezes out the word 'sir' like it has had to be forced through his lips by a bulldozer.  
  
"Agent Bris-"  
  
"Or how exactly Arvin Sloane and Irina Derevko are _less_ of a risk to national security now with our attention focused away from them?"  
  
"Jack, if you would just listen-" He's angry now, and more than a little frustrated, Jack reflects with great satisfaction.   
  
[_Now you know what I feel like every f****** day of my life…sir._]  
  
"No, I will not listen! Is my daughter dead, or missing in action? Is she in a location where she can contact us and simply chooses not to? Does she have amnesia and know nothing of her previous life? Or is she in collusion with Sloane and my wife?"  
  
"Jack, our officers are still trying to analyse the material you brought back from France and Scotland-"  
  
"I do not care what your officers are or are not trying to do, Kendall. Tell me where my daughter is, and what she is doing right now, and I will work on whatever insane and reckless scheme you like."  
  
"I'm sorry, Jack, but we simply cannot devote any more resources to Sloane's operations right now. And that includes Agent Bristow."  
  
"I'm sorry?!-"  
  
"However, I can tell you that analysts have concluded that wherever Agent Bristow is, she is operating under her own free will and is apparently happy. Dr Barnett would be pleased to talk to you and Agent Vaughn about these conclusions if you wish."  
  
"I can't believe this." And he really can't. _What sort of games is this man trying to play with me? Where does he get this rubbish?_  
  
"Jack, you may not appreciate this, but we are at war right now. Every day more people die in the Middle East, and every day we intercept more traffic about enemy agents crossing our borders. There's another 9/11 coming, and we have no idea how, where, or when. All we know is that it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.   
We don't have the personnel, or the resources, or the money, to hunt for Agent Bristow. Sydney was a very talented agent, and I'm sorry for her loss. But I have a job to do, and a country to protect. I don't have time for personal vendettas or agendas."  
  
Jack stands, and walks to the door, turning at the last minute to ask a question of Kendall.  
  
"Who, in your opinion, is the most dangerous man alive in this world right now?"  
  
For the first time in this little "interview", Jack obtains the upper hand.  
  
"Well, I'd have to think about that for awhile….all the various heads of the terrorist-"  
  
"If you have to think about it, you don't know. There's only one man with the power to destroy this world. His name is Arvin Sloane."  
  
"You're out of your depth, Mr. Kendall."  
  
Jack's parting words echo in the room as he leaves disgustedly.  
  
* * *  
_Now begins the reconstruction of the shattered  
  
Now we rebuild that/those who have fallen  
  
Now we bury the pain [with an empty casket] and try to live again  
  
Now we try to do what we cannot ever achieve  
  
Now we try to forget the sun and her light  
  
Now we try to forget the way things were  
  
Now we try  
  
Now we fail_  
  
* * *  
  
Vaughn throws himself into his work, now, bent on reconstructing the perfect life he had _before_.  
  
Before her.  
  
Before Sydney walked into his office and shattered his world-   
  
[_a spinning snowglobe drops slowly to the floor, shattering into pieces where it falls and smashes, the little white snowflakes evaporating into nothingness_]  
  
Before his life began to fall apart because he no longer wanted what he always thought he'd wanted [_centre could not hold_].  
  
Before his life was consumed by her.   
  
He works twelve hour days, usually. Eric worries about him. He doesn't drink. He barely even watches hockey anymore.  
  
He just works…he doesn't even go home most nights, because all his home has is an empty bed without her – his dog lives with Eric now, as a result of an argument between the two of them, if you can call it that a few months after it all fell apart…he had just stood there looking blankly while Eric had shouted at him, trying to get him to speak, to shout…to react. But in the end he had simply told Eric that he should look after Donovan, as he clearly wasn't cut out to look after him anymore.  
  
He's disintegrating, coming apart at the seams, and trying desperately to pull himself together by throwing himself into his work.  
  
Because his work is all he has left of his once-perfect [_once-normal_] life.  
  
So he works. He sleeps. He eats a little. And he works some more.   
  
He finds it no longer matters what he works on, be it illegal immigration or customs duties. He does it all steadily, methodically, almost robotically.  
  
Because it gives him something to fill his days, fill the time he used to spend with her [_thinking of her_].  
  
He works by day, surrounded by concerned friends and co-workers.  
  
But he faces his demons [_faces her, the one who called him her guardian angel_] alone in the dark at night.  
  
He works.  
  
* * *  
  
Jack retires after burying his daughter next to her dead fiancée, both, he's convinced, victims of Arvin Sloane.  
  
He doesn't believe she's dead [_doesn't know what to believe, really_], but the CIA won't help him search for her.  
  
Jack Bristow in retirement, Eric Weiss reflects with some amusement, is more active than most twenty-year-old agents.  
  
He carries on destroying Sloane [_continuing his daughter's work_], slowly but surely, driven only by the thought of one day killing the man who destroyed his daughter's life.  
  
He takes over Irina's organisation, becomes the Man, goes down into the underworld and becomes king where his wife was once queen.  
  
He sees the irony in it as well, but he knows that to bring down Sloane, he needs power. Real power, the kind that the CIA could never provide.  
  
He hunts his prey carefully, building his power cautiously.   
  
He eats away at Sloane's power carefully, indirectly, small surgical strikes at insignificant facilities…..a thousand small ant-bites, eating away at the extremities of Sloane's operations and slowly but steadily working their way inwards.  
  
He lures away the best of Sloane's mid-level operatives, and then begins to steal their superiors.  
  
One day, nearly two years after she disappeared, there sits a man in front of his desk, a man that Jack Bristow has been waiting for for what seems like an eternity.  
  
He tells of a pretty brown-haired woman, an investment banker, married quite happily to a paediatrician, living in London.  
  
They call themselves the Hechts, and Arvin Sloane is her employer.  
  
They have found her.   
  
* * *  
_the future surrounds us,  
  
waiting to be born,  
  
waiting for us to give into what must/what will be  
  
we know nothing of what it will bring  
  
we know nothing of what it holds for us  
  
we know only that it is always born in pain  
  
* * *  
many things are born in pain.  
  
pain is born in pain.  
  
but so is a new born child.   
  
so is new life.  
  
without pain, there is no life.  
  
without life, there is nothing._


End file.
